Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games: Great free branching story authoring tool called Twine now available

2.7.09

Great free branching story authoring tool called Twine now available

The point of this blog is to get more people creating, deploying, and using sims. One of the most intuitive place to start with non-linear content is a branching story format.

So it is really great that Chris Klimas has created and released for free and in open-source a marvelous, visual, and easy to use branching story authoring environment called Twine. Get it at:

http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/

He has also put up a lot of help, in the form of both videos and text, to get started. This is a helpful modeling tool for developers such as myself to test out content, even content that will eventually be more dynamic than pure branching. More importantly, I can imagine instructors at all levels, from middle school to college, asking students to use Twine to create branching stories for homework or deeper reports.

Authoring tools are the most obvious bottleneck for simulation development. Chris Klimas has made a powerful and intuitive tool that allows anyone who wants to create branching stories to be able to do it now.

New Generation of Simulations Provide Cost Effective, Measurable Behavior Change

The new models of simulations and serious games are filling that razor edge of opportunity and necessity for people responsible for organizational or community learning. In about an hour, these new sims develop business-critical concepts and drive long lasting behavioral changes in a way that is engaging for the user, reinforced by a deeper understanding of the material, and can meet certification requirements and other external measurements for the sponsor. Multiple sims can be chained together for greater depth and breadth. And their visual and kinesthetic nature make them the perfect choice for global audiences.

Building Simulations

I design and build simulations, and either manage the entire end-to-end process or just take on the role of Lead Designer if an external team is already in place, for a growing list of international clients from corporate, military, government, and academic environments.

My clients and I have been called thought leaders, mavericks, rebels, and upstarts. We are together forever changing the way wisdom is recorded from experts and developed in others, while driving unheard of results for organizations and promotions for sponsors.

Email me if I can answer any questions.

Rates

End-to-end projects by quote.

$3K per day for on-site work, including speeches.

$140 per hour for remote (synchronous collaborative and asynchronous) work.

$60 per hour plus expenses for travel.

The Complete Guide: A Brief Description

The Complete Guide for Simulations and Serious Games offers an encyclopedic overview and complete lexicon for those who care about the next generation of educational media. This is the essential reference for not only those directly involved in simulations and serious games, but also for researchers and writers, computer game designers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs.

Organized as a style guide, the book includes more than 600 easy-to-browse entries and definitions, divided into key topics with introductory essays highlighting essential concepts. Written by Clark Aldrich—acclaimed educational simulation game designer—the book creates a unified view of capturing skills and knowledge and then developing them in others, through different uses of: computer interfaces, level design, bosses, dynamic systems, game elements, displays, units on maps, skill cones, feedback, assessment strategies, even balanced scorecards and artificial intelligence, just to name a few.

It balances tactical (what needs to go into a first level of a sim; what are questions to ask subject matter experts, how should programs be evaluated; when and how should coaches be used) to strategic (what is the difference between learning to know, learning to do, and learning to be; what does situational awareness look like when developing leadership or stewardship).

In the spirit of Webster, Strunk and White, and Tufte, filled with helpful guidance and illustrative case studies, The Complete Guide for Simulations and Serious Games is the definitive “go to” bookshelf reference for this generation.

Virtual Leader Product Line Available

SimuLearn's Virtual Leader Global Product Line, for which I was the lead designer, is available. Virtual Leader is the winner of countless awards and recognitions, including a patent and the title "The Best Online Training Product of the Year," and the world's first example of a new type of educational content. Through the AI and interface that I designed for the program, Virtual Leader develops leadership and emotional intelligence in players, as has been proven and documented in numerous third party published research. While I was not involved with the subsequent vLeader line, including vLeader Essentials, SimuLearn have taken the core product and my supporting content and put new packaging and additional linear material around it, while breaking it into smaller pieces.

Clark Aldrich On Simulations and Serious Games

2.7.09

Great free branching story authoring tool called Twine now available

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